Most people know that universities are not what they once were. But few have witnessed first hand the extent of our left wing institution’s indoctrination. My time studying art history at a university here is a case in point.
I am sitting in a seminar room. It is glum Wednesday afternoon. The seminar ahead is three hours long. Students gradually mope their way into the room. I hear faint mutters of the antics of their recent night out on the town. ‘Did you see you how f***** Tom was last night?’, someone murmurs (such is the sophistication of pre-seminar chitter chatter). Our lecturer strolls in five minutes late. He sets up his laptop. After messing around with a few bits of paper, he connects it to the projector. And there it is – the title ‘Postmodern Art’ a picture Donald Trump stark naked with a tiny penis underneath. The room echoes with little petulant giggles.
Moments later, our lecturer cascades into a blood-thirsty rant, purging his inner intolerance of nationalism. How can anyone believe this man is fit for office? How can anyone be proud of what America has done to the world? What of his misogynistic outlook? His disingenuous promises of on-shoring manufacturing jobs in middle America? His ‘racist’ wall? He likes to grab pussies for Pete’s sake? The room falls silent.
When did it become so commonplace for teachers, lecturers, and professors to shove their politics down the throats of impressionable young students? Do they expect us to challenge such ferocious beliefs?
Can you imagine a lecturer showing an unflattering, naked representation of Hillary Clinton? Diane Abbott? Caroline Lucas? The contradiction is astounding. But my postmodern lecturer presents Trump as the archetype of historical misogyny yet because he is a man mocks him for having small genitalia. It doesn’t seem very postmodern to me. It seems sexist. Germaine Greer would laugh through her teeth.
A survey conducted by The Adam Smith Institute in 2016 revealed that eight out of ten lecturers are left wing at UK universities. US conservatives are well aware of this gradual Marxist insurrection; it is right out of the Maoist playbook – turn the culture upside down and against itself. It started decades ago. Adding to the worry, The Open Syllabus Project, which tracks works assigned to students, revealed that across the US, Karl Marx’s sacred manifesto is the most assigned reading at universities. We have the same problem here. While I was at university lecturers and professors assigned it in three separate modules.
The new problem is Marxists lecturers no longer operate in the shadows but insist on absolute adherence to Marxist teachings. It left me not only scrutinising conservative academics and commentators who I agreed with in assignments but writing arguments rebutting them I knew to be false. Shrewd students pander for marks. If you have the ‘right’ politics, you get more marks. The double tick of approval by the tutor next to a sentence in which I criticised Paul Joseph Watson, the well-known conservative commentator and YouTuber, in one of my assignments confirmed such.
In another instance, a lecturer advised students not to criticise Marx because it would be “too complex” – as if demonising the rich would require the pairing together of more than two brain cells. The same lecturer cautioned me for addressing a transgender individual sitting next to another biological female as ‘guys’. All I was trying to do was gain their attention so I could pass them the handout. Such is the environment we learn in.
My advice, if you are a conservative, is save yourself the trouble and self censor. The Marxist lecturer is on a moral one and there is no room for disagreement. Bide your time, get your degree and speak out afterwards.
One can only hope good old Boris will stem the tide and introduce a quota system to ensure ideological parity amongst university staff.
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Ideological parity? No, total excision. Marxists are as repulsive as nazis and should be treated accordingly.
Please let me know if you’re looking for a writer for your site.
You have some really good articles and I believe I would be a good asset.
If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d really like to write some articles for
your blog in exchange for a link back to mine.
Please blast me an e-mail if interested. Cheers! https://www.thecarpetguytc.com/
Hilarious. Come and stretch my carpets.
Question for Derek:
Are you any relation to Charles De Laet Waldo Sibthorp, a mid-19th C. Tory? Slightly different surname, and “Sibthorp” or “Sibthorpe” may be quite common, I don’t know. There was a piece about him in this organ about 18 years ago. Not really sure of the date. Our esteemed “Well Struck In Years” editor may remember the exact issue and perhaps even link it for us. Sad to say, I did a housecleaning of my periodicals some years ago and, by accident, no longer have it.
A book about him has been on my Amazon wish list since 2014.
The Parliamentary Career of Charles De Laet Waldo Sibthorp, 1826-1855: Ultra-Tory Opposition to Reform in Nineteenth Century Britain. Very expensive, but now available online, should he
happen to be a relation.
Dear Johnhenry.
I’m a little ashamed to admit that I have never investigated any connection I might have with the Colonel. My father had told me that there was a connection but I never thought to investigate it as I was too occupied with my own life at that time and forgot all about it until I read John Jolliffe’s book ‘Eccentrics’ in which he gives a brief synopsis of Charles (Sibthorpe spelled with an e) and his brother Richard. I particularly liked the reference to his reported appearance in Fraser’s magazine in 1847 – ‘the debris of what must once have been a magnifico’. I like to recognise in myself some of the characteristics of Charles De Laet Waldo – especially his uncompromising love of country – as described in Jolliffe’s book but I would not dare to pretend to have achieved his vigour and success in life. The colonel was admired by Michael Wharton (Peter Simple) and I suspect his character ‘Squire Haggard’ was based upon him. It’s time I looked into a connection as it would give me great satisfaction if I had inherited some of the genes of that remarkable man.
Will this thread never end? Will no one rid this place of that turbulent Pict?
johnhenry
Something rotten in the sate of Salisbury. I think the term that persomnagessuch as young Andrew use is troll.
persomnagessuch
J. O’Connell: Google tells me that you’ve just coined a neologism, also known as a Googlenope:
Nope – your search term – persomnagessuch – did not match any Google documents.
Suggestions:
Make sure that all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.
John Henry
Who am I to question the almighty Google?
The truth is somewhat more prosaic, a jumpy Internet Cafe computer.
None of your guesses about me so far have been remotely accurate.
Well, I am guessing you’re a self-important socialist putz who automatically considers any opposing view as “drivel” and “ranting”. How am I doing so far?
You find it impossible to comprehend conservative views in the same way party members in “1984” find it impossible to wrongthink.
I’m somewhat late in joining the comments on this subject but it must be obvious to any person over the age of 60 that a successful revolution has taken place in Britain. The revolutionaries – Anthony Crossland, Roy Jenkins, and Shirley Williams and consummated by the Blair creature – surely followed the model outlined by Antonio Gramsci that a lasting revolution can only be achieved by infiltrating the institutions of a state and education was the most important. University students now come mostly from schools that have already inculcated them with a socialist/Bismarckian biased political/historical grounding which is then consolidated and confirmed by University lecturers. I see no way back from this as supporters for traditional conservative values, practises, and ideas are not noisy, hateful, and resentful people as is personified by pro-E.U. anti-Brexit supporters who are and get media coverage for it. We conservatives have to acknowledge that those who purported to represent and protect a conservative position were disingenuous defeatists (except those like Enoch Powell, Sir Keith Joseph, and the true supporters of Margaret Thatcher) and chose office over principle. The only weapon for conservative minded people is the ballot box for which the effect has been all-but eliminated by the E.U. Like him or loathe him, Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party is the nearest you will get to any effective conservative reaction today and the same goes for Donald Trump and that’s why they are marginalised by the most influential players in the mainstream media.
The social revolution in the 1960s (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, free love, hippies, dope etc.) threw out the baby with the bath water.
As a teen-ager in the late 1950s, I enjoyed the pop music of many performers including the Beatles and the Rolling Stones but that adolescent enjoyment was on the wane into my early 20s when I woke up to the true genius of music from previous centuries. Pop music had no effect on my life’s interests but it was the perfect money-spinning medium to endorse and promote the Socialist cause in the impressionable and gullible young and is why the Labour Party and the Lib-Dems (what an abuse of those titles) clamour to lower the voting age to 16. It’s the perennial teen-ager Marxist dreamers (remember the countless tee-shirts and posters glorifying the murderous Che Guevara?) who have gained power and celebrated by the remnants of those ‘useful idiots’ from the 1960s attending the Glastonbury festival. They are the fools who believe that freedom is achieved through destroying the nation state and are wedded to the authoritarian monster in Brussels.
The claim that you were enjoying the Beatles and Stones in the 1950s accurately reflects the credibility of the drivel that followed.
Dear Andrew.
How old were you in 1960 and what do you divine from the results of the so-called 60s revolution which have shaped today’s Britain.
As always, Andrew describes any facts or opinions he dislikes as “drivel”. He is not here to listen to your ignorant rantings, peasants; he’s just here to tell you the revealed progressive truth. .
In eight words, Derek: grammar, grammar and correct, intelligent English! Please try harder.
The rot is pretty deep. Forget this clown of an instructor. Even Prof. Evans, one of the fairest and best historicans alive, recently savaged the late Prof. Stone in an obituary for being (in effect) rude to other historians, while writing a hagiographic biography of a naked supporter of mass murder (and mass murderers), the Marxist Prof. Hobsbawm.
Perhaps he became a Marxist because he saw the unfairness of rich students having new bicycles when he had old ones, says Evans. Can you imagine Evans ever saying that perhaps Goebbles, say, became a Nazi because rich Jewish kids had better bikes when he was young?
Why the double standard? Part of the reason is seen in Evans’ work on Hobsbawm. He recalls how, in the 60s and 70s, when he, Evans, was a student Marxist exactly like the rest of the herd of independent thinkers, Hobsbawm was a hero – and it was such an exciting time when they felt do virtuous and important!
Well, I’m sold. That’s certainly a good reason to support mass murderers. “Intellectuals” are for the most part supremely selfish children: let millions perish, so long as they feel *important*.
I suspect that Andrew, like others of his ilk, graduated the Google School Of Knowledge”.
I just don’t swallow idiotic articles like this one as a reliable reflection of actual events.
Conspiracy theorists, like most of you, rely more on googled nonsense than actual observation.
Seems like circular reasoning to me. Why is this article unreliable? Because it reached a right-wing conclusion. But why are right-wing conclusions wrong? Because they are based on unreliable articles.
Welcome to the friendly haven of free speech that is the Salisbury Review website, Jake Stark! What you’ll find here is a genuine “Safe Space”, since we won’t try to deprive you of a degree, a career or a private life if we don’t completely agree with you.
I don’t completely agree with your analysis of the current problem in the Groves of Academe, because I think that Gramsci is a bigger influence on the airheaded professors and lecturers than Mao. Mao first destroyed China’s economy before turning his attention to the destruction of China’s traditional culture, but your airheaded professors and lecturers probably follow Gramsci in wanting to destroy traditional British and European culture first, in the hope that economic destruction and millions of deaths will ensue.
Most of them probably don’t want millions of deaths to ensue, but the most obvious observable fact about all forms of Socialism (and Fascism and Nazi-ism, which are derivatives of Socialism) is that millions of deaths always ensue.
Again: welcome.
PJR is describing cultural Marxism. How odd that this literal term is avoided, even on anti-Marxist fora.
Niall McCrae: I use the phrase “Cultural Marxism” often enough for it to be odd that I left it out of the comment you’re replying to.
But according to Wikipedia, “the term Cultural Marxism refers to an antisemitic conspiracy theory of the far right-wing”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory
I rejoice in being on the far right wing, but I’m neither anti-Jewish nor a conspiracy theorist. Perhaps somebody ought to edit the Wikipedia page.
Marx, Freud, and postmodernist / feminist / “x studies” texts are essentially religious texts of a cult. Virtually unreadable and usually self-contradictory or meaningless when not just plain wrong, this palpable nonsense is “proved” by mere assertion and social pressure.
Students learn, all right. But despite what I said above I’m not sure they really learn socialism. It seems as likely they learn their “intellectual betters” are self-important fools who merely need to be humored for a while. That might even be a worthwhile lesson.
Who’s going to *ask* the smaller states to agree? The liberals from the East and West coast will try to *force* them into de facto giving up their vote.
Just like in Britain Brexit will be, likely, eventually cancelled, the proles will be forced to vote again and again until they get the correct result.
In America, the “liberals” suggest the 2016 elections got the “wrong” results and shouldn’t count. They do the same with Brexit in the UK. Essentially in both cases we have contempt for democracy: if THOSE people won, it shouldn’t count.
Then they find excuses, such as the unfairness of the electoral college. But the whole *point* of the electoral college’s “unfairness” is to not let the large states dominate the small states. Today,liberals *want* the small states, where the deplorables live, to not count.
Skeptic, you are totally right in your explanation of how and why the Electoral College system is a democratic one when speaking of a country as vast as the USA. Yes, “democracy” is usually understood to mean one man, one vote and majority rule, but in America that means the west coast and the northeast would rule forever. Not actually “forever”, but for a very long time. How can smaller states be expected to live in such a polity and not want to get out, unless bribed by the richer and bigger states?
Nice summary johnhenry. We can rest assured that if Hilary Clinton had won in 2016 with fewer votes than Trump there would not have been calls from Liberals for the abolition of the Electoral College, nor protests that she got three million less votes than the losing candidate.
Likewise, if the Remainers in Britain had won the 2016 referendum on Brexit by 52% to 48%, we would not have had any Liberals questioning the validity of the result. Any suggestion to the contrary would have been shouted down as an affront to democracy.
“if the Remainers in Britain had won the 2016 referendum on Brexit by 52% to 48%, we would not have had any Liberals questioning the validity of the result”
No, Nigel Farage clearly stated that he wouldn’t have accepted that result as final though.
And of course the idea that 3 million more would have voted for trump is laughable.
>the idea that 3 million more would have voted for trump is laughable.
Agreed, it is laughable. The biggest gerrymandering scam in US history has made sure that will never happen: liberal support for no borders and sanctuary cities has made sure that the US will be unrecognizable in 20 years’ time. Massacres of the remaining whites (Hilary Clinton, Pocahontas and other white liberals will not be spared, by the way) is only a matter of time.
“the whole *point* of the electoral college’s “unfairness” is to not let the large states dominate the small states. Today,liberals *want* the small states, where the deplorables live, to not count”
Four of the ten smallest states by population, plus DC, voted for Clinton. My problem is purely with the system. In the UK it’s no better. Whatever you think of ukip, 1 seat in parliament for nearly 4 million votes in the 2015 election is scandalous when the Scottish Nationals got 47 seats for around 1.5 million.
I’d just like to say, contrary to Clinton’s allegation, that I think half of trumps supporters *aren’t* deplorable.
I think it was Roger Scruton who perceptively called the modern universities “madrassas for Marxism”. The common university graduate (physicians, engineers, etc., excepted) is trained in nothing in particular except socialism. As a result, he is good for nothing except becoming yet another bureaucrat in the NHS or some similar state organization.
At least his university experience fits him well for the life of petty backstabbing and ruthless careerism he is intended for; this is how professors usually really act – all their talk about justice, acceptance, broad-mindedness etc. being (students quickly learn) a pathetic sham. The typical professor’s claim to be dealing with “the life of the mind” is worth about as much as the latest “we emphasize diversity and inclusiveness” circular email from the local HR department.
No offence, Septic – and I’m sure Scruton doesn’t care what anonymous people like you or me call him – but if one is British, or at least has a right to UK citizenship like I do (I think I do, but would never exercise it) does not gentlemanly behaviour require, much like holding doors open for the weaker sex – e.g: Jane Kelly and Catherine Blaiklock – that we call him Sir Roger? Even Lulu understood that basic protocol in the 1960s when she sang To Sir, With Love to Sidney Poitier, who is no more English than me and Meghan Markle.
…than I or Meghan Markle. Apologies.
Sir Roger it is! No offense intended of course. That explains why there aren’t titles of nobility in the USA. There are only so many “Sir Billy Bob” you can have…
I was almost shot in Panama City Beach about 12 years ago. Called a taxi. Jumped into the taxi. Driver reached for her gun. She was expecting a woman passenger. It ended well. Better than in 1968 when I was held up by a gang of -er- swarthy men inside Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. I don’t hold it against them. I was wearing my band uniform: red jacket, white bow tie, white shirt, white trousers, white buck shoes…asking to be robbed.
you have told us that before
Which goes to suggest, Doctor, perhaps even prove, that I’m a credible commenter, not to mention “well struck in years”.
In the USA
Wall being built
Economy on fire especially here in Florida
Expectation is Trump will win by a bigger majority
Democrats struggling to put forward a credible candidate .
Catherine Blaiklock:
“Here in Florida”? What are you doing in Florida? We need you here!
“Walk being built”? Walking would certainly be good for the fat-arsed Yanks!
As for President Trump, he seems to me to be a moderately conservative President whose efforts to implement the will of the American people are constantly being frustrated by unpatriotic wreckers in Congress and the courts.
Similarly, the moderately conservative Boris Johnson’s efforts to implement the will of the British people are constantly being frustrated by unpatriotic wreckers in Parliament and the courts.
“Democrats struggling to put forward a credible candidate.” Carter was their last credible candidate. They’re not going to find another Carter. But credible and electable may not be the same thing.
Andrew says: “I’ve not used any Latin.”
Eh? What language is Argumentum ad populum?
Pualulum linguae Latinae dico. Vero, Latinae loqui non est difficilissimum.
…but my command of Ebonics is not good, as you can see @ 17:09, where I say “axe” when I should have said “ax”. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2014-jan-19-la-oe-mcwhorter-black-speech-ax-20140119-story.html
johnhenry: Andrew didn’t use any Latin. He merely linked to a Wikipedia page that used some Latin.
Dulce est desipere in loco, but there are limits.
Now start playing nicely, kiddies, before the grown-ups have to resort to quoting Cicero and Aristotle for your educational benefit.
Hate to descend into pettifoggery on this website, PJR – although I have made my living at it these past 40 years – but the Pict (Andrew) linked to a Wikipedia page containing Latin…ergo…or should I say Quod Erat Demonstrandum, or should I say, as Rhett Butler said to Scarlett O’Hara in the concluding scene of GWTW: “Re vera, cara mea, mea nil refert”?
___
Interesting short review in the City Journal a few days ago of a new series of small books on the writings of the Greeks and Romans.
johnhenry: Speaking as somebody who has been reading Greek and Roman authors in the original languages with ever increasing enjoyment for forty years, I despise all modern translations. Whether it’s Penguin Classics or Loeb Classical Library or this new Ancient Wisdom series, translations will always tell you more about the translator than about the original author.
If you didn’t have the luck to learn Latin and Greek at school and don’t have the time to study as an adult, the best English translations to read are the oldest ones, in which the translator’s bias is easy to see. North’s Plutarch, Golding’s Ovid, Dryden’s Aeneid, Pope’s Iliad: these are the kind of translations I’d recommend. They’re fun to read, but they’re also *obviously* inaccurate; the inaccuracy of modern translations is dangerously difficult to detect.
For instance, I’m an admirer of Rex Warner’s 1954 Penguin translation of Thucydides, because it’s rendered into beautiful English prose, but it gives the innocent reader the impression that Thucydides was a Marxist avant la lettre. Innocent readers should be offered Thomas Hobbes’s version instead: everybody can see through Hobbes’s bias, but not everybody can see through Marx/Warner.
PJR: I concede to pulling the Pict’s goatee (^) when I sniffed at his use of Latin, which is every bit as good as my own – exactly zero in other words. And I also admit my envy of your long and deep acquaintance with both Latin and Greek. My instruction in Latin (never Greek) came to an end after 4 years of high school. Still, as you say, there are translations which we middlebrows can enjoy and profit from, and I do. Cheers.
johnhenry: Your four years of Latin are better than no Latin at all, which is what nearly everybody is offered nowadays.
Meanwhile, I notice that a treasonous Remainer Speaker has been elected to impose treasonous Remainerism on our next parliament even if we voters choose to punish treasonous Remainer MPs for their treason in the General Election. If all goes well in the election, the first business of the House of Commons ought to be the removal of its Bercowesque Speaker.
Andrew (likely from north of Firth of Forth) axe me above (^) at 16:54:
“Are you uncomfortable with anything you’ve said?”…
…and I will gladly answer him when he answers me this:
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materium possit materiari?
If you cannot actually speak Latin, try Google.
I’ve not used any Latin. Have a cup of tea.
Andrew, you’re such an ultracrepidarian. Look that up on Wikipedia.
Argumentum ad populum, forsooth!
Me transmitte sursum, Caledoni!!
Jake’s anecdote suggests fear on the part of our indoctrinating progressive intelligentsia. Who is prospering and who shall prevail – the embittered lecturer who of course voted Remain, or the much maligned but swashbuckling president Donald Trump? Who gets 20000 every week at rallies, and who gets a reluctant and bored gathering of students whose fees are being wasted?
Trump’s father’s middle name was “Christ”. Donald’s egomania is in his genes.
Ah, argument by appeal to popularity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
The lecturer will probably still be in his job long after trump is gone. Not that this in itself gives his views any validity of course.
Placemen and idiots do tend to remain where they are. Trump has already made the world a better place whereas Marx the slum landlord and fool developed a theory which millions of fools followed wiping out whole nations
Captain, was Marx actually a slum landlord? I never knew that. Donald’s father (Christ) was a slum landlord.
When you say “placemen and idiots”, to whom are you referring – to me, or to Pict named Andrew?
There is far too much self-censoring taking place already. Ceding territory to the Left for the sake of a quiet life is a dangerous practice. The politics of the far Left are becoming normalised as anyone to the right of them is bullied into silence. Your lecturer probably imagined he was teaching his pupils good politics and sound moral values along with the art history. But where are the lecturers who would have the courage to fulfill the “ideological parity” you hope for when so many are going along with the Left-Liberal flow to avoid damaging their career prospects?
Narrow minded Left wing activism in higher education has been growing for a long time. I too was on an Art History course a couple of decades ago. I remember a lecture on surrealism being hi-jacked by a feminist student who denounced Max Ernst as sexist. This, she insisted, should be the real subject of the lecture rather than aesthetic considerations and other such bourgeois irrelevancies. Sadly, the lecturer acquiesced so, instead of learning more about surrealism, we endured a two hour expose of the “deplorable sexist imagery” in Max Ernst’s work. The subtext to this was that we pathetic middle class students were, by our lack of political awareness, colluding in social injustice. It worth mentioning that by redirecting the lecture in this way the feminist student was able to keep it firmly within her comfort zone – ie. “I don’t know much about art but I do have strong views on sexual politics”. [You should have been there Andrew].
Andrew, you say that Trump the Clown “isn’t fit for office”. He will likely be the GOP’s nominee again next year, and if so, and if you have a vote there, will you cast it for him or for his likely opponent, the fake squaw? Personally, I’m just on my way out to vote in our election today. Not sure whether to cast it for our Al Jolson wannabee, or for his Conservative opponent, also widely considered to be one. A clown, that is.
I didn’t call him a clown. That’s unfair on clowns, who at least behave in a professional manner.
I’d say he’s more like a selfish 7 year old. You say fake squaw, I call him fake human.
I don’t have a vote in the US. Of those who did, nearly 3 million more voted for Clinton, but an electoral system that prioritises the opinions of vast tracts of prairie over humans put this abomination into office.
I also think the republicans will come to their senses by next year, or even more likely, trumps mental capacity will have declined so much by then that he won’t be in any state to stand anyway.
Andrew, I didn’t say you called Trump “a clown” (I called him that) but even if he is a clown (my opinion) or a “selfish 7 year old” (your opinion) he’s less dangerous to the future of America than is the fake squaw. Woodrow Wilson was non compos mentis during the last year of his presidency, but thanks to his wife, America survived. Likewise, Melania Trump can fill in for The Donald if he has a stroke or goes senile.
___
Your understanding of the U.S.electoral system is flawed, as is that system, but not as deeply flawed as your understanding of it. Best regards.
“Andrew, you say that Trump the Clown ‘isn’t fit for office’.” – I know your quotation marks don’t include the actual words, but the implication is clear. I don’t really go for meaningless epithets as insults – that’s more trump’s style. I like mine to be more down to Earth and justified.
Wouldn’t it be the VP who “fills in”? Who knows what you meant? I expect Pence would like a couple of years of Trump’s second term to elapse before he can assume the presidency and, under the constitution, hold power for 10 years instead of 8.
My earlier comment was based on something I heard from an American political analyst of the right wing persuasion, who said the electoral college system was designed to prevent a handful of cities dictating the presidency over the wishes of rural states.
Andrew, what say you and I lay off our bit*h slapping one another?
I’m not bitch slapping anybody, just putting forward my point of view. You can either continue or not as you wish, and I’ll do the same.
Are you uncomfortable with anything you’ve said?
Hi, Andy: My Woodrow Wilson reference should have reminded you that I meant a president can still hold office after a cerebral hemorrhage (American spelling) if his close relatives conceal him from public view, thus forestalling impeachment. Actually, without consulting your preferred source of information (Wiki) I cannot recall whether WW suffered from dementia or thrombosis, but whichever, his never-remembered VP was never given the opportunity to step into his shoes, because WW’s wife firmly held the reins. I do apologize for my mixed metaphors.
Andrew –
The liberal PM Justin Trudeau just lot the popular vote in Canada but formed a minority government since his party has more seats anyway due to the Canadian system’s peculiarities.
That means Canada is obviously not a “real” democracy and Trudeau an “illegitimate” PM, correct? We’re going to hear that for three years now incessantly from the media and the liberals, right? Because they just “objectively” care about the “undemocratic” systems of voting, isn’t that so?
Of course not. It’s only “undemocratic” and “illgitimate” if a non-liberal wins. Essentially, liberals simply think that if they didn’t win there is some mistake and the other side is illegitimately in power until a do-over can be arranged and the “correct” result achieved, the one that is on the right side of history, against the evil warmongers.
You know, just like In Stalin”s USSR and Mao’s China.
Very interesting, I thought this was happening. I will not be sending my child to university.
You don’t send your child to university. They might choose to go, if they satisfy the entrance qualifications.
Obviously though, you don’t trust your child to be able to think for themselves anyway.
You’re a conundrum, Andrew. Victoria suggests that children do not make good decisions. You see that but still say we should trust them to make good decisions.
“Victoria suggests that children do not make good decisions”
The only thing she suggested was that she makes the choice about whether or not her child goes to university. The most you could infer is that her child doesn’t make good decisions.
If you can’t trust your child to make a decision like this at 18 you’ve already failed as a parent.
P.S. I bet the vast majority of people called Andrew are not Scottish.
>>>You don’t send your child to university. They might choose to go, if they satisfy the entrance qualifications.
Not really. Most students are massively helped by their parents. Very few earn enough or have scholarships generous enough to go to university on their own.
This is one reason, incidentally, that “elite” university “education” (such as it is) is essentially reserved for the upper and middle class. “Top” universities are all for “diversity” – so long as you’re not one of those proles who doesn’t know their place.
>>>>Obviously though, you don’t trust your child to be able to think for themselves anyway.
Universities *say* they want “independent thinkers”, but in reality shut up as “hate speech” or “racism” or “x phobic” any view that doesn’t fit whatever the party says is the truth this week.
Try, for example, to argue for the obvious position that men who claim to believe they’re women are still men, for essentially the same reason men who claim to believe they’re Napoleon Bonaparte still aren’t.
If your child dares to independently think THAT, he’s going to get into big trouble as “transphobic”. The same with many other obvious truths that are now thought crimes in these institutes of “free thinking”.
In the UK there is no reason why the parent needs, or has any authority, to make the decision to send their child to university. Technically, an 18 year old isn’t a child anyway.
I have no idea what your other ramblings have to do with this incontrovertible fact.
From experience, when someone on the left claims you’re “rambling” and they have “no idea” what your point is, that usually means you just made an obviously true point they rather ignore.
No, the point here is to do with the authority of one individual to “send”, meaning making the decision and then directly effecting the action, another adult on a 3 or more year course of study. I say in the UK that is a long way from reality. If you’re in the US then maybe it’s different and only the rich get to study.
What I called rambling was your wandering off on irrelevant nonsense, straight from the pages of the Daily Mail (Google it), and I stick by it.
Andrew wrote: “Obviously though, you don’t trust your child to be able to think for themselves anyway.”
I always try to be polite in my comments here, and I hate myselves for making fun of your hilariously bad English, but your determination to use idiotic “gender neutral” pronouns in accordance with Cultural-Marxist doctrine has led you into typing ludicrous nonsense, hasn’t it?
Victoria didn’t specify whether it was her son or daughter, so I couldn’t use either gender-specific pronoun, could I? Had she done so, then so too would I. You’re worse than johnhenry for making up totally false assertions about me.
Out of interest, what’s hilariously bad about my English? I’m always happy to learn. There’s really no need to “hate yourselves”.
That said, you’re really missing the entire point, which is the even more hilarious idea that you actually choose to send your child to university, or otherwise, and that the child, once there, would be incapable of either ignoring or questioning any opinions that were put to them.
So, why not send your 18 year old child to a neo-nazi summer camp? Surely they will be able to “ignore or question” all the nazi propaganda, right?
Sure, some young folks can ignore or question Marxist propaganda, too. But that hardly means sending them to the madrassas of Marxism known as the British universities is a good idea.
Perhaps you shouldn’t be sending them anywhere. An 18 year old is an adult. And your glib soundbite assessment of universities is absolutely ridiculous by the way.
Andrew:
1. You could have written “himself”, because in sane English grammar the masculine pronoun and the common pronoun are identical.
2. The thing that was hilariously bad about your English was that you used “themselves” to refer to an individual.
3. I didn’t miss your point, I merely didn’t comment on it.
Sorry PJR, when it comes to sanity some of your recent hate-filled postings are those of somebody who appears to be right on the edge and possibly about to go over.
The use of “themselves” appears to be acceptable in this case, and more importantly, natural. While you may not agree, to say it’s “hilariously bad” is just arrogant. I’m sure you would be happier if everybody was communicating in ancient and unchanging Latin or Greek, however most of us find this kind of tedious and fallacious pedantry very, very boring, especially when it’s also completely off topic.
It must be really awful for people like you to see other people unrestrained by self-imposed and arbitrary rules like this, and thus able to focus on the really important stuff.
Young people now are so immature, so unaware of what real life is like and so emotionally fragile that no one in her right senses would trust them to take any serious decision.
Excellent generalisation! Well done!
“your child …. able to think for themselves” – some grammar revision needed.
Not really. I couldn’t use the either of the alternatives, “himself” or “herself”, because as I pointed out before, the sex of the child wasn’t mentioned. It felt natural.
In fact, Collins says:
“You use ‘themselves’ instead of ‘himself or herself’ to refer back to the person who is the subject of a sentence without saying whether it is a man or a woman. Some people think this use is incorrect.”
What do you think should be correct?
You hardly need to be left wing to realise trump isn’t fit for office. His recent communication with Turkey being a case in point, but his utterances generally are hardly rational and rarely well founded.
That said, you make a good point about the imagery, but I’d like to have been there to see the reality of your lecturer’s tone, rather than what is seen through the obvious filter of your own politically biased ranting.
Andrew:
We can probably agree that President Trump is illiterate, but does that mean that he’s irrational or stupid? It seems to me that he has a clear, sane and intelligent Weltanschauung, but that he can’t express it in words as clearly as an expert in rhetoric like you could.
And even if he’s irrational and stupid, at least he’s not Hillary Clinton. The world had a lucky escape there!
It’s more that his rhetoric is infantile than that he’s illiterate. His constant name-calling belongs in the playground rather than the White House.
Trump’s opponents behave as childishly and stupidly as he does. The intellectual level of modern political debates is really deplorable.
He’s dragged the level down, but I think generally his opponents do quite well to retaliate as little as they do.
President Trump is no intellectual but his world-view matches that of most sensible people in the USA, which is why he was elected. Those same people are tired of educated wind-bags who have been to Harvard, read 10,000 books and remain utterly ineffective.